Pope Pius IX and France
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The foreign relations between Pope Pius IX and France reflected Pope Pius IX's hostility to the French Third Republic's anticlerical politics, as well as Napoleon III's influence over the Papal States. But this did not prevent church life in France from flourishing during much of this pontificate.
When Pius IX assumed the papacy in 1846, French Catholics were divided into a liberal faction under Charles Forbes René de Montalembert and a conservative faction under Louis Veuillot. They agreed on the right to private schools, freedom of instruction, financial support by the State and a rejection of gallicanism.[1] Pius addressed the French bishops with his encyclical Inter Multiplices, in which he asked for concord of mind and will among the French.[2] Under Napoleon III, French Catholics got much of what they wanted. Napoleon III, because of his defense of the Papal States, was also seen as a defender of the Church and of Catholic interests.
Blossoming of Church life in France
French religious life blossomed under Pius IX. Many French Catholics were in favour of the dogmatization of Papal infallibility and the assumption of Mary in the forthcoming ecumenical council.[3] The French bishops, with some notable exceptions, were faithful to the Holy See. During the pontificate of Pius IX, some five Catholic universities were founded, in the cities of Lille, Angers, Lyon and Toulouse, in which clerics were educated in a strict (although some argued, scientifically less than desirable) manner.[4]
1849 attack on the Roman Republic
When the Revolutions of 1848 in the Italian states broke out, there was a rebellion against Pope Pius IX in Rome, forcing him to flee to Gaeta. The Pope appealed for support; and French President Louis Napoleon (the future Napoleon III) encouraged Pius IX and assured him of reinforcements from France. In April 1849, General Oudinot's expeditionary force arrived at Civitavecchia to attack the revolutionary Roman Republic, and the Constituent Assembly in Rome passed a resolution of protest (7 May 1849). Although Louis Napoleon had himself engaged in a liberal insurrection in the Papal States in 1831, it was his troops that crushed the republic (29 June), although Pius IX did not return to Rome until April 1850.
Pius was met with a sullen reception[5] on his return to Rome, as the Romans were unimpressed by the return of the pontiff at the point of French bayonets. He blessed the French troops, held a Te Deum and signalized his return to Rome by an extension of his 1846 amnesty and by a new Indulgence. He frequently repeated his main message that he had returned as a pastor and not as an avenger: in urbem reversus pastor et non ultor.[6]